Foundation model developer StepFun and Alipay have announced a system-level partnership aimed at bringing AI agents beyond conversational assistance and into everyday consumer services. The collaboration was unveiled on July 17 during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026 in Shanghai.
AI agent payments infrastructure is rapidly becoming one of fintech’s fastest-growing segments, with startups and global payment networks racing to build financial rails for autonomous AI. Natural’s latest funding round suggests investors believe AI agents will soon become independent economic participants, propelling beyond simple productivity tools.
Every online store handles something a blog never does. A stranger types a card number into a form and trusts that it reaches the bank and nowhere else. That single transaction pulls the store into a security obligation most owners underestimate, and a large part of that obligation lives on the server the store rents. […]
Sunrate and Mastercard have released a joint white paper, Beyond Automation: Defining Agentic Global Payments, at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai.
With just one week remaining before entries close, organisations and individuals working across Open Banking, Open Finance and Smart Data have a final opportunity to submit nominations for the Open Banking Expo Awards 2026. The entry deadline is 22 July 2026, ahead of the industry’s flagship event taking place in London this October.
Money20/20 Europe is the highest-scoring payments event for 2026 in PaySpace Magazine’s benchmark, followed by MPE – Merchant Payments Ecosystem and Money20/20 USA.
Payment security has spent two decades treating automated traffic as a threat to be filtered out. Agentic commerce is reversing that logic. Visa has enrolled local banks in its Agentic Ready programme, Mastercard has launched Agent Pay, and OpenAI has integrated Instant Checkout with Stripe. In March 2026, Mastercard and Google open-sourced a protocol called […]
Payment providers are widening how and where money moves, from BNPL at the checkout of long-distance travel, to a mobile wallet issuing its own cards, and a wallet infrastructure provider deepening multi-currency support for global platforms.
This year, PaySpace Magazine Global team had a chance to visit Point Zero Forum, which ran alongside Swiss Fintech Week 2026, held in Zurich from June 19 to June 25. The two parallel events covered AI adoption in banking, agentic commerce, and the infrastructure for programmable money. As those topics are among the most-discussed within […]
Nayax has unveiled its new AI component for MoMa, the mobile management app for those in the unattended trade and self-service sector. This update comes with the addition of AI-enabled features allowing companies to control business processes, hastening decision-making and managing fleets of vending machines via smartphone.
Payments platform Kurv has appointed Mark Alsentzer as Chief Technology Officer, the company announced.
Abhi Saudi, powered by Alraedah Digital Solutions, has announced a partnership with TAM Aerospace & Defense, an aviation services provider in Saudi Arabia, to introduce Earned Wage Access (EWA) for the company’s workforce.
Hangzhou-based Alipay has integrated an AI agent into its Tap! payment devices, extending AI-powered services to the millions of offline merchants that use the hardware. The company describes the update as the basis for the world’s first large-scale AI-powered offline business operations network.
Float has launched its card-linked instalment platform in the UK, introducing a payment option that allows consumers to split eligible credit card purchases into interest- and fee-free monthly instalments using the credit already available on their existing Visa or Mastercard. The company says its model differs from traditional buy now, pay later (BNPL) products because […]
Global payments company Payfuture has launched a new integration with Shopify that enables merchants to accept popular local payment methods in India through a single connection. This system is aimed at streamlining payment processing in this growing market.
Cross-border payments company Damisa has appointed Nick Watkins as Chairman of the Board, strengthening its leadership team as it prepares for a Series A funding round expected to begin later this year.
© 2026 PAY SPACE, LLC
03148 Ukraine, Kyiv, 2A P.Kurinoho str.
